It initiated a period of unbounded looting and asset-stripping by the Company which the British themselves described as ‘the shaking of the pagoda tree’.92 From this point, the nature of British trade changed: £6 million** had been sent out in the first half of the century, but very little silver bullion was sent out after 1757. Bengal, the sink into which foreign bullion disappeared before 1757, became, after Plassey, the treasure trove from which vast amounts of wealth were drained without any prospect of return.
